Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
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The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time was the cover story of a special issue of Rolling Stone magazine published in November 2004. It was chosen based on votes by 172 musicians, critics, and industry figures.
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[edit] The Top Ten Songs on the List
The top ten songs are:
- "Like a Rolling Stone" - Bob Dylan
- "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" - The Rolling Stones
- "Imagine" - John Lennon
- "What's Going On" - Marvin Gaye
- "Respect" - Aretha Franklin
- "Good Vibrations" - The Beach Boys
- "Johnny B. Goode" - Chuck Berry
- "Hey Jude" - The Beatles
- "Smells Like Teen Spirit" - Nirvana
- "What'd I Say" - Ray Charles
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[edit] Controversy
As with similar previous lists from Rolling Stone, such as The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time and The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, this new list proved to be controversial. One criticism is that the list suffers from a strong bias towards American and British artists: out of the 500 songs, 357 are from the US and 117 from the UK; the third most represented country is Canada with only 10 entries, then the Republic of Ireland with eight. The list includes only one song not sung in English: "La Bamba" (#345), by Ritchie Valens (an American-born singer). Another common criticism is that, much as the earlier list of 500 greatest albums did, it leans towards the 1960s and 1970s, at the expense of newer artists and even newer genres such as rap, and ignoring all music that existed before the late 1940s.
It may simply be the case that the list reflects the preferences of current Rolling Stone readers and those of critics and writers who specialize in post-1950s pre-2000 music.
There seems to be controversy with all of Rolling Stone's lists of all time greats, as their list of the 500 Albums of all time and their 100 greatest guitarists of all time were met with some disdain by many fans. Many feel some guitarists on the list are not the 50 best all time, but are only on the list because of popularity.
Another controversy is that the list should be renamed The 500 Greatest Records of All Time because the technical definition of a song is the music and the lyrics and a record is the recording. This change may be needed as three songs made it onto the list by two artists. (See Miscellaneous below.)
[edit] Miscellaneous
The list has 202 songs from the 1960s and 144 from the 1970s, yet only 55 songs from the 1980s, 24 songs from the 1990s, and just two songs from the 21st century. The oldest song on the list is Muddy Waters "Rollin' Stone" from 1948 (ranked #459). The only other song from the 1940s is Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" from 1949 (#111). The most recent is OutKast's 2003 hit "Hey Ya!" (#180) — the other song from the current millennium being Lose Yourself by Eminem (#166).
With 23 songs on the list, The Beatles are the most represented musical act. They are followed by The Rolling Stones (14 entries); Bob Dylan, who also topped the list with "Like a Rolling Stone", (12 entries); Elvis Presley (11 entries); The Beach Boys and Jimi Hendrix (seven entries each); and Chuck Berry, U2, James Brown, Prince, Led Zeppelin, and Sly & The Family Stone (six entries each).
When the article ran in the 2004 issue, musicians Brian Wilson, Tom Morello, Brandon Boyd, Solomon Burke, James Hetfield, ?uestlove, Ray Manzarek, Slash, Billy Gibbons, Ozzy Osbourne and Maya Ford all were featured in a column each about their personal ten favorite songs.
Three songs made it onto the list twice under different artists:
- "Blue Suede Shoes", by Carl Perkins (1955; #95 on the list), covered by Elvis Presley (1956; #423)
- "Mr. Tambourine Man", by Bob Dylan (1965; #106), covered by The Byrds (1965; #79)
- "Walk This Way", by Aerosmith (1975; #336), remade with Run-D.M.C. (1987; #287)
